Let’s be real here. If I had posted a recipe today, there is a 0.0001% chance that you would have made it over the holiday weekend. So, to save both you and I the trouble I forewent a recipe for this WIAW and instead filled out a fun Thanksgiving survey that I saw on Liv Lives Life’s blog! Along with answering the questions, I also included some pictures and links to some allergy-friendly Thanksgiving recipes to keep up with the theme of WIAW, hosted by Jenn at Peas and Crayons.

1. Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?

Every year since I was born (except for one year when my dad had to have surgery) we have visited my dad’s side of the family who live about 3 1/2 hours away. Although this year will be quite small compared to normal, I know that we won’t be going for too many more years now so I will treasure each moment.

2. List at least three dishes that are on your family’s table every year.

We don’t actually eat at a dinner table for Thanksgiving and instead gather in the many different rooms of my grandma’s house. And we don’t share what we are thankful for either, just a bunch of old stories!

11. Do you cook the whole dinner, just the bird or bring a side dish?

We bring bottled water. Does that count? ;) Because we have to drive so far nothing we make would last the trip. Plus, whenever we insist on bringing something everyone else insists harder that we don’t. Ha.

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As I mentioned above, I am going Black Friday shopping again this year as per tradition! If you’d like, you can check out my wish list from last year and what I actually bought on Black Friday.

I haven’t had much of a chance until the past few days to check out the Black Friday ads, but I’ve already spotted multiple things that I am considering:

We are in desperate need of a new waffle maker as our current one is literally being held together by two #2 yellow pencils. A new George Foreman would also be great since the nonstick part is wearing off on our other ones. And we have been looking to buy a new blender/food processor forever since neither of ours can crush ice or frozen fruit very well for smoothies, so a Ninja might be a good pick.

I was surprised to find some great deals on sheets! I refuse to use anything except for flannel because I get cold so easily, and these two that I found were less than 20 dollars each.

More practical items on my list! My boots from last year are basically ruined from so much use and every time I do attempt to wear them my socks end up getting soaked because the soles aren’t sealed anymore. So basically I need a new pair of boots. Preferably none in the hundreds of dollar range. I’m thinking $20 is more my speed. Along with boots I also need a new pair of cheap gloves as the tips of my other ones have worn out and you can see some of my nails. Classy.

DVDs are on my list every year and they are my only guarantee for Black Friday shopping. Simply put, they are WHY I go Black Friday shopping. I love rewatching my favorite TV shows and movies so if I can get them cheap all the better!

While it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll be getting DVDs during Black Friday, on the opposite side it is very unlikely that I will be purchasing a new camera. This is kind of my “Dream List.” While all of the cameras shown here are around $100 (about $70-140), my cellphone is still working alright for pictures. It’s just become a real hastle lately since it won’t let me upload pictures via a usb cord anymore and I have to email myself pictures for every post I want to make. And sometimes it takes hours for the emails to go through. Plus my camera memory card is full. So ya.

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Yesterday was also Day 2 of Elf For Health, and the challenge was to unsubscribe to e-mails and work on clearing out our inboxes. The goal was to clear away at least 3 subscriptions and I managed to do over 10 I think. I still have three other e-mail accounts to work on which will be super easy now with the new service I discovered called unroll.me. Basically it’s brilliant and you should check it out if you have an insanely cluttered inbox like me.

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Questions for you:

Answer some of the Thanksgiving survey questions above!

What is/would be on your Black Friday shopping list?

Have you cleaned out your email inbox lately?

***How would you all be interested in a giveaway for the new Happy Herbivore cookbook that I talked about a little while ago? Just a refresher, it is called Happy Herbivore Light and Lean. Since I was part of the pre-release tour I have been offered the chance to host a giveaway for a free copy. I don’t want my blog to be all about giveaways though so I thought it would be best to ask you first. It will be just for U.S. and Canadian readers (sorry to everyone else!). What are your thoughts?***

Love the exercise picture you made- your so creative (and funny). Screw watching football, it sounds like the perfect time for an epic HP marathon…just sayin!

Good luck with your purchases- I hope you get some good bargains! I only realised recently I had a spam folder in my email…and even then so much spam was coming to my normal mail. Epic clean up indeed!

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in Germany, but I’d really love to go on a Black Friday shopping trip! That sounds so crazy, it could be fun. I need some warm winter boots, too! It gets so cold around here (20°F and below), and my boots from last year are so ugly. That Ninja chopper looks great, I want one of those! I could send you my waffle maker, I never use it anyway. ;)

Love your holiday hustle workout. And everything on your black Friday list. I plan on doing some online shopping from here since I can’t physically be there since it is still much cheaper to do that than buy stuff here.

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in Ireland either but the build up to Christmas is enough I reckon! Christmas dinner is in our house again so I do everything apart from the Turkey. My mother dearest takes care of that. I am getting hungry thinking of the dinner :):)

Yes I think you should deffo do the giveaway BUT include Ireland haha :) seriously though its a great idea.

I will hit the January sales, they start on St Stephens Day (the 26th December)

I get sooo much satisfaction from unsubscribing and cleaning out my inbox. I sign up to so much rubbish!!
We don’t celebrate thanksgiving so no turkey for me this weekend! But it does sound lovely. Lemon meringue pie is deeelicious, good choice!
It’s nice that you get together with your whole family :) Have a lovely time.

Haha love the Thanksgiving workout Madison! I love Gilmore Girls, I actually have the boxset, which I paid a crazy amount for when I was in my first year of uni. I have watched it from start to finish three times though (best friend, sister and boyfriend!) so think it is almost justified!
Hope you have a wonderful time with your family.

Your Thanksgiving sounds absolutely lovely, hun! This is the first year that Joe and I are doing our own Thanksgiving, so we’re starting our own tradition which I’m excited for (although I will miss my daddy’s stuffing since no one makes it like he does). This is the first year I’m going Black Friday shopping, and I’m only going out to get a good deal on running shoes for Joe haha, but I might take a look at some dvds and whatnot too, since I love rewatching my favorite tv shows and movies, too. Have a safe trip to your dad’s family’s house and a wonderful holiday <3

Pumpkin pie all the way! My parents bought an apple and cherry pie, so I might not get pumpkin pie today, but I might have a baked apple (since I don’t care for the crust of pies — the filling is the best part anyways!). Then again, I also just ate a whole baking pumpkin yesterday, so maybe I’ve had enough vitamin A for the week…. ;)

I love your workout!!! Those are my favorite kinds of workouts — workouts that aren’t “workouts.”

My Black Friday shopping consisted of a trip to the grocery store. That’s about all the excitement I can handle the day after Thanksgiving. I love that you included the Gilmore Girls. I had a mini GG marathon last weekend and it was wonderful. I love that show.

I did not nap on Thanksgiving but I sure would have liked to. We did two Thanksgiving on the actual day, both in Toledo and on the Hubby’s side of the family. We’re spending this weekend in Buffalo though with my family so I suspect leftover turkey sandwiches will be on the menu (at least the Hubby’s).
I hope you got to and are still enjoying the long holiday weekend.

Omg, THANK YOU!!! I just used that unroll me app and cleared out like 20 something subscriptions I didn’t even know I had!! My inbox has been overflowing lately and it’s been irking me to no end! I really needed to de-clutter!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, sweets! And hopefully you weren’t forced to watch football! Ick! That is one thing I’m thankful for, the fact that my dad AND the man-friend aren’t interested in sports at ALL! Now to answer some survey questions since I can never resist!

3 things always on our Thanksgiving Day table: Candied sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, and my dad’s nasty cranberry sauce in a can! If I’m lucky there is turkey, but it’s a battle every year against the pig! I am not a huge fan of ham though and I always tell them that they can have it on Christmas AND Easter, but PLEEEEEEEEEASE give me my bird on Thanksgiving! Lol! And even though I haven’t had any in a while, I’ll take a pumpkin pie over pecan any day!

Hope you were able to score some of the items on your BF list! I just can’t do it…I swear I have no problem with closed in spaces, but I get people-claustrophobia like you wouldn’t BELIEVE! ;)

And I’d totally be down with a cookbook giveaway! I mean, c’mon…it’s a COOKBOOK! Food…at your fingertips…if you don’t make it, you can just drool over the pages! Lol

This is seriously the greatest survey! If I’d gotten my blogging act together faster, I would’ve done it on my blog too! It’s so cute! I think turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing are the classics! Wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without them. I hardly check my email inbox, but you inspired me to. One of them had over 1000 messages from Facebook alone. Oh goodness! Hope your holidays are wonderful!

Yay for out-of-the-ordinary pies! We had chocolate ice cream pie this Thanksgiving. :-)
Also yay for Gatsby!! We have very similar wish lists. I hope you got or get some of the things on yours!
I’m always up for a giveaway. ;-)

If you host a giveaway, do I win again? :)
That turkey recipe sounds super yummy, I may have to suggest it next year.
I’m not a huge black friday person, but I hope you got some of the deals you were looking for!